Dear wonderful Panquake Community;

With our Phase Two funding round now at 99.5% you can expect an update formally announcing the launch of Phase Three (the final round!!!) any time now. There's some more great news about what's coming in the next few days from Panquake at the bottom of this update too so be sure to read to the bottom.

Strange and wonderful things have happened in the last few days! Let's start with the strange.

Twitter Offers Panquake New Twitter Account Then Immediately Permanently Bans Us. Here Are The Receipts:

As many of you will know, the official Panquake Twitter account, where we amassed thousands of followers, was @Pan_quake.

Our Chief Security Officer, Sean O'Brien, had been in communication with Twitter for some time, attempting to secure us the long-dormant account @Panquake.

Last week, we were amazed when Twitter contacted us and let us know that they were going to give us the @Panquake account. Sean patiently followed their instructions, creating a placeholder account to use to transition to the new account on, and changing the @pan_quake Twitter bio to direct the public to @Panquake.

Within minutes of the transition, Twitter permanently banned both our old and new accounts.

Twitter's reasoning? We "evaded permanent suspension". Except we had never been permanently suspended.

So... we got permanently suspended for evading permanent suspensions when there were no permanent suspensions for us to evade.

Confused? We are too. And we're not alone.

Sean filed an appeal to the suspensions and astonishingly, Twitter responded that they would not reverse the bans.

You may remember that back in March, Twitter suspended Panquake's main Twitter accounts. There was a massive public outcry about it and Twitter eventually backed down, claimed it was "an error", emailed us a formal apology and reinstated the accounts.

But by April they took a different tack and started picking off some less high profile Panquake accounts, including the fledgling @PanquakePeople project, the development team account @PanquakeDev and even the personal account of our Social Media team leader. Despite us appealing these acts of what looks awfully suspiciously like commercially motivated censorship (if not outright sabotage), these accounts have not been restored.

In aggregate, our experiences with Twitter this year have taught us a few things:

1. Never to treat our customers the way Twitter treats its users
2. To develop far superior customer service systems than Twitter has - Panquake will employ real people to communicate with its users and will not hide behind automated AI systems to make decisions about accounts
3. No matter how many times Twitter executives appear before Congressional committees to claim that they're not a monopoly and that they welcome competition, their actions speak louder than their words.

Panquake is tiny by comparison to Twitter - but Twitter is clearly scared. Because of your support, we have them on the back foot already. Panquake is innovative, Panquake exists to serve the interests of its users, unlike Twitter who serve the interests of corporate advertisers and the almighty dollar. Twitter only wants you for your data. Panquake doesn't want your data, we want your privacy and your autonomy.

That's why we are the future. Twitter is the past. And it looks like they know it already. They smell change in the air.

With every passing day, Twitter alienates and abuses the trust of more of its users - sending them flocking to us.

Since Twitter banned our accounts this weekend, Panquake donations have gone up exponentially.

How You Can Join The Fight Back:

1. Donate to push Panquake into Phase Three and then promote us as much as possible to help push us through that final funding phase as quickly as possible, so that we can deliver Panquake into your hands sooner!
2. Contact media and complain about Twitter's anti-competitive, anti-trust and monopolistic behaviors
3. Contact US Congresspeople and State Representatives and inform them of the same
4. Tweet and tag @TwitterSupport and tell them exactly how you feel about them banning us on false premises

What Twitter is doing is morally wrong and may well be illegal too. Your collective voices are powerful, and your collective voices can make change happen.

Panquake To Deliver You Presents - This Week!!

Now for the wonderful and exciting news: Panquake is holding our December monthly public delivery meeting this Thursday 23rd of December - eight days earlier than usual. This is because the development of the Panquake BETA has made major strides in the month of December and we have some enormous news to share with you about our progress and next steps.

Things are moving on the build far more quickly than we had anticipated and we know you'll be thrilled by what we have to show you.

So please follow and keep an eye on our Vimeo Channel for a fresh and exciting holiday update this coming Thursday.

In the meantime, keep donating so we can announce our transition into Phase Three!

You are our community and our voice. Thousands of you have banded together to make this project happen. And together, we're going to get it over the line.

What was once an idea is now becoming an inevitability. Thank you so much for your faith, your commitment and your support.

With love,

The Panquake Team